Summary: This exciting conclusion of Wolf’s own series was overall a good read for me, but Fen Jacin certainly takes his place amongst the most tortured characters I have ever read about – in any genre.

Blurb:

Book 4 of Wolf’s-own

Fen Jacin-rei finds himself again on the run after discovering the reality of what he is and why the gods won’t let him go. His one source of support, Kamen Malick, is suddenly unavailable, and now hounded and chased by ghosts who want to drive him into insanity and keep him there, Fen will have to face life all alone.

…Or maybe not. Old enemies and new allies seek to control Fen, now known as “Kamen’s Untouchable.” It’s going to take everything Fen’s got to figure out who he can trust—and who he should fear. It might take more than what Fen’s got to discern who is even real.

Wolf’s-own Series

Review:

So I will be honest, had I not felt obligated to finish these series for the review I would have probably never picked the last book. It was staring at me in my backlog basically since the moment it was published and I just ignored it repeatedly. Finally I felt really guilty and really scared of Wave possibly sending me a howler to review the book I had been keeping for so long 😉 and few days ago forced myself to start it. If you have read my previous reviews of these books you will know that my wariness has nothing to do with quality of those books. – I think this series is very well written, they just hit several wrong buttons for me. My couple biggest ones were basically overdosing on main character’s pain and suffering and waiting impatiently when would he start taking charge of his destiny at least by small steps. And the story was definitely my type of story, but the expression “it is all in the degrees” had never been more true. I love the characters like Jacin, I just overdosed on his pain and at some point could not even feel bad for him.

My other issue was the lack of action in book three. Well, book four most certainly provided plenty of very exciting action and I enjoyed it a lot, even if a lot of action happens within poor Jacin’s head. No, I am not saying anything more specific about that 🙂

Book four also upped the amount of Jacin’s sufferings a lot, or I should rather say we learned more about how much he suffered and continued to do so. I had been thinking how to express the degree of what he had been through without giving out spoilers and here is the comparison I came with :). Do you guys remember Prometheus? Well, think about the punishment Zeus imposed on him for giving fire to humanity (and accidentally for keeping a secret about Zeus’s possible downfall and how to avoid it heh). While this comparison is in no way a spoiler, the severity of what Jacin suffered could be compared to that punishment IMO. Such a punishment was very well explained in the book, but for me it was just too much emotionally;( there was no graphic violence involved).

Note the book actually contains two scenes which for me were too graphic, but I have low tolerance for graphic violence.

And of course for me Jacin together with Malik were the best part of the book. Heck, Jacin and Malik together were the best part of the series :). The emotions, the connection between them, the depth of understanding, the willingness of Malik to do *anything”, literary anything for Jacin, and all his other allegiances be damned if needed be. I loved them together so much.

Plus the sexual chemistry between them was as always off the charts with no explicit sex at all – just touches and few kisses. This writer does sexual chemistry very well.

Everything was explained in this book and everything was clear. I was disappointed a bit because I think that the “epic” part of this fantasy did not quite live up to my expectations, but Jacin’s journey alone was certainly worth it for me.

Author

Sirius

6 comments

Why wierd? I could not make myself start this book :). I ended up liking this installment much more than other three,but no way IMO this needed four books to tell this story. I am also still not sure what was the point of being in Shig’s head and Samin’s head either except increasing amount of people who thought they knew what’s better for Samin. Anyway, overall I respect these series, but there is absolutely no way I will be rereading them anytime soon.

Your review justifies beautifully why even though I thought the first in this series was amazing and epic I haven’t bought the rest. I told myself I was waiting for them all…..and there did seem to be many….to be published before I carried on the battles by Fen’s side……and yet I still avoided doing so. Big thanks as I now no longer feel guilty. :flowers: